Field
This disclosure is generally related to distribution of digital content. More specifically, this disclosure is related to cache management on high availability routers in a content centric network.
Related Art
The proliferation of the Internet and e-commerce continues to create a vast amount of digital content. Content centric network (CCN) architectures have been designed to facilitate accessing and processing such digital content. A CCN includes entities, or nodes, such as network clients, forwarders (e.g., routers), and content producers, which communicate with each other by sending interest packets for various content items and receiving content object packets in return. CCN interests and content objects are identified by their unique names, which are typically hierarchically structured variable length identifiers (HSVLI). An HSVLI can include contiguous name components ordered from a most general level to a most specific level.
A CCN entity (such as a router) typically maintains three data structures: a pending interest table (PIT) to track incoming and pending requests for data; a forwarding information base (FIB) which determines interfaces on which to forward a packet; and a cache or a content store (CS) for storing data which may be retrieved in response to an interest. Typical CCN communication is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/847,814. While current CCN protocols specify that a router may store received content in its CS, the current CCN protocols do not specify where or how to store the content in a high availability router, i.e., in a router with multiple intelligent network line cards which are connected to a supervisor card via dedicated lanes through a fabric. Nor do current CCN protocols specify how to subsequently access such stored content in a high availability router.